Obigatory welcome to 2018 blog post

Time to write the end of the year blogpost. Perhaps reflect back on the year that 2017 was. A mix of good, bad, and other. I celebrated a year back blogging on wordpress.com after a absence of some bit of time from my self-hosted domain. I still have the WordPress backups of those posts but those will never see the light of day on this blog. Too much storied history there and dark posts which I don’t want to relive even vicariously. So, in the interests of looking back and perhaps by doing so I look forward, I’ll record this. Perhaps I will let my daughter know about this thing. It would be fun to have her write here as she finds hopefully the guy that she will want to spend time with. I told her about a year ago after she asked what she should do,

find a guy and find a job

I believe she has done both. I don’t think education is some important thing that a person needs to do in some kind of strict order. Witness my own stumbling advances to finally getting a MA in Cultural Anthropology and doing new world prehistoric archeology. It took me steps to get there. So, perhaps I will share this with her and let her come on board and record. It may be interesting for those few readers to see the differences in what an oldster like me thinks and a 20 year old.

In lieu of that, here are my things of 2017. Many lead to things happening shortly in 2018.

Debt. I learned that I must pay off remaining debt especially revolving debt and I started this paying off a bill that had loomed for years because of my own stupidity and weakness. Now I have only a $4k car debt left which gets paid in about two weeks. Debt Free!

Credit Cards. These are evil manifestations of cruelty and should be avoided at all costs. If you have the money for a thing you want or need why would you be enticed to pay the cost of the thing plus the credit charges for the thing broken out over minimal payments. Even if you pay it off at once, give it some thought. Credit cards are evil and always have been.

Minimalism and De-Duplicating. I think these go hand-in-hand. You cannot minimize if you have 13 laptops and 5 desktop computers. How many pair of shoes or jackets do you need? I have lessened this foot print down to two hoodies, one pair of sneakers for work, and about 10 t-shirts for work. I have also simplified the electronic foot print to a 12 inch MacBook Pro, a iPad mini, and my iPhone. I could get by with two of the three and lose the mini 4. But I enjoy it and it crosses a few boundaries so its not a duplication. As far as minimalism goes, I live it already. I live in a room that is about 12 by 16 or so. It has a bed, a Roku TV, a mattress and rug and a table. I don’t have expensive sofas and chaise lounges. No fancy dishes or flatware. I do have a Chemex and a goose neck teapot because I enjoy grinding and making good coffee.

Planning. We all need a plan. We need something that lets us position our lives pointing at something. For me, the plan soon executes but for others it may be a plan to do other things. Perhaps travel or being a vagabond is not in your cards. That’s okay. What’s good for me may suck for you. Mileages vary. Just consider at this end of year; what is out there and what you want out of it.

Work and Play. Work has been a love and hate thing for the last months. Its gotten easier since I gave my notice to resign on 31 January 2018. Play for me has not really come along due to this last project but soon I will play. Play is going for long walks in different cities and countries with my travel buddy the FujiFilm X100F camera slung over my shoulder. Its tiring these old legs out and being thankful over a beer or Starbucks at the end of the day. Then I know that Play is good and that there’s a subtle difference between play and Play.

Responsibilities. Lose those if you can. They are chains that lock you to a thing. If you must keep them, target them carefully and make sure you are getting something out of them and the amount you give is equal. I don’t like them and strive to get rid of all responsibilities.

Relationships. The final faux pax. The thing which broke this guy’s armor down in 2009. But I have come out the other side and now I know that we choose these and sometimes we choose them badly. I have written before about people R and E here. They are users and will take and use what I offer freely. But asked for something and they demur. That is not friendship folks. That is being taken advantage of and used. This one and the previous one has been looked at carefully in 2017.

So we come to the end of 2017 and look forward. Big questions remain. Will our embattled president last the next year? Do we really know what we are doing with our increasing isolationism and “America First”-ism? Do we know what climate change and global warming mean and have we done the right thing? Big questions that affect us in many ways. Global warming affects archeological sites and rivers and cliff house dwellings and fragile ecosystems. We are a strike force of development but if we don’t exercise restraints and look at the previous two things at a big level, we lose. We stand to lose more. So much more.

Welcome soon to 2018 if its not already here. Hopefully not the same as that old Who song,